Dance Review: Sleeping Beauty

Bolshoi Ballet
Royal Opera House, London WC2 (run ended)

Talk about suspending disbelief. The Bolshoi Ballet’s production of Sleeping Beauty is so wholesome and natural that the audience last Tuesday, including myself, lapped up the constant stream of superb, even if extremely familiar, dancing with an eagerness you could taste in the normally austere confines of the Royal Opera House.

Leading this onslaught of high art classical ballet as easily digestible entertainment was Svetlana Zakharova.

She is tall and mature with the sort of authority that would silence a particularly rowdy House of Commons.

Yet she dances the eponymous Beauty, a 16-year-old Princess Aurora. And though she dominates the stage, she is utterly convincing as a young woman with whom half the audience falls instantly in love.

And this is the Bolshoi Ballet’s secret weapon.

For most Russian dancers, dancing is as natural as breathing.

For most Russian dancers, dancing is as natural as breathing.

Telling the age-old story over three hours of a princess cursed by Evil Fairy Carabosse (Igor Tsvirko) to sleep 100 years until woken with a kiss by a handsome Prince (David Hallberg), is simply accepted as real.

No streetwise attitudes or social conceits, just conviction. American Hallberg as Prince Desire has an occasionally breathtaking and strain-free physical ability but slim and blond, and with partnering issues, his is a bland performance and makes his permanent presence in the company a mystery.

The good guy is Olga Smirnova’s Lilac Fairy, defending the baby Aurora from Carabosse and manipulating the young couple to the big kiss and a happy life ever after.

Smirnova’s controlled technique and sinuous arms make her a convincing, but not pushy, force for good.

The corps de ballet is worth all the praise heaped on it and the dancers even made the Act I Garland Waltz, played at every popular music concert, a fascinating and enjoyable experience.